


Things once lost

by wendywhite13



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Dishonored 2 - Fandom
Genre: Childhood Memories, F/F, Flashbacks, Ghosts, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Post-Low Chaos Ending, The Void
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-15 20:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12328422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendywhite13/pseuds/wendywhite13
Summary: Emily takes a trip down memory lane in the Void, and runs into an old friend. Takes place after the events of "Imperial Physician," but can be read alone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This honestly started off as an explanation of why on earth Emily wore the same outfit for a year straight in D1, but it morphed into something much larger. Switches back and forth between Emily's very scattered recollections and her very strange present.

Emily balanced delicately on the spurs of black rock, slowly advancing along the cliffside. She had to be careful here. The soft-heeled climbing boots she liked to wear on the rooftops were gone; instead, she wore wooden-soled whale leather shoes that slid on the stone. They made an ugly clip clop against the rock that echoed through the silent space, down, down into the bottomless chasm below.  
Worried, she raised her arms out to steady herself on the narrow pass. But they felt stiff and constrained, and when she looked down she saw not her regular clothes but a frilly white satin suit. Funny. She hadn’t seen that in a long time, had she? Emily furrowed her brow. How long had it been? How long had it  
been since that day in the white gazebo with the sun shining bright and the birds calling, mother standing watching the sea. It was hot that day, and the satin itched on Emily’s sweaty skin. She was bored, bored and lonely, and she would have given anything to at least go play down by the waterlock, running through the dirt and splashing in the water. But any mess would show on that horrible white satin, and mother would be mad. Mother, always after her to be a lady, always trying to bend manners and the demure femininity of a noblewoman into her. It was she who chose Emily’s clothes, and she had laid the white satin suit out on Emily’s bed that morning. Probably to keep her from having any fun, Emily had thought at the time.  
But that day hadn’t been fun at all, had it? The last thing Emily had remembered was rough, leather-gloved hands grabbing her arm, tearing the delicate lace of the sleeve. An absurd thought had flashed through her mind then: now mother’s going to be mad at me for that too. And then a scream, full of pain and fear, had cut every thought from Emily’s mind. She’d tried to twist away, to see, praying that the scream hadn’t meant what she thought. But one of those rough hands had come down hard on her neck, and she fell deep into a dark and troubled sleep.  
When she woke, she thought at first that she was still dreaming. Nothing made sense. Her mother and father were gone, and she was in a room she didn’t recognize. An old woman in garish make-up was shaking her roughly awake. “This is your new home,” she’d said. “Your parents are dead and we’re all you have, you better get used to it brat.”  
Emily hadn’t wanted to believe, but as the hours turned to days and weeks she was forced to accept reality. This was no dream, it was a kidnap. It was a kidnap and she was an orphan, no longer a princess but a prisoner in the strange, creepy building called the Golden Cat.  
Her captors were trying to hide her identity, that much became obvious. They never spoke of her by name, not even to her. They called her with grunts and insults, and rough yanks on her wrist if she didn’t comply. She wasn’t allowed near the “business” area of the Cat, as the old woman, Madam Prudence, called it, where well-dressed men came to do…things with the ladies that lived there. Her place was out-of-sight, in the dank attic the workers slept in. They had tried to take her white suit too. “Too recognizable,” Madam Prudence had said, and then she’d laughed. “You’re no fine lady anymore, anyway,” said the horrible old woman. She’d held up a set of old clothes, no more than tattered brown rags, for her to wear. “You’d make a more convincing mudlark.”  
For a second, Emily had almost taken the clothes. They were a little on the old side (or maybe ancient was a better word), but they were the kind of clothes she would have killed to wear back in Dunwall tower-soft, loose, comfortable looking. Clothes she could have splashed in the mud in, that day.  
But she’d thought about the white suit, laid out on her bed. Her mother had set it out for her that morning. It was one of the last things she’d ever done, the last gift she ever gave Emily. At that, Emily snapped, all the pent-up rage and sorrow from the last few days spilling out into a terrific tantrum. She punched and kicked and bit at Madam Prudence’s hand when the old witch had tried to get her out of the suit, and wailed loud enough that she knew the customers below would be able to hear her. Madame Prudence knew it too. She slapped Emily, hard across the face, bringing tears to the girl’s eyes and snapping her out of her fit. But she let Emily keep the suit. “Soon,” she told Emily, “it will be black with filth and stink and no one will know you were ever a lady.”  
It didn’t, not that that would have particularly bothered Emily. As long as she got to keep the horrible thing, to hold it at night and think of her mother’s hands on it, she didn’t care what the suit looked like. Still, not everyone at the Golden Cat was as cruel as the Madam, and some tried to help Emily in small ways. The “ladies” of the Cat, strange, hollow-faced women who cried at night and rarely looked Emily in the eye, snuck her downstairs to the washroom to clean the suit every few days. None of them spoke much to her, and Emily wondered what they knew about her kidnapping. Most of the women there seemed markedly unhappy, but a few of them had jars of funny-smelling herbs that seemed to keep them in a permanent daze. Still, they were nice to Emily, and it helped to remind her that not everything about her new life was horrible.  
Even with the ladies’ help, after a few months of being worn every day, the fine suit was in tatters. Some days Emily regretted keeping it. Like when she spilled blood ox stew on it one night and couldn’t get the stain out. She fell asleep that night thinking of her mother’s disapproving face. Other times her concerns were more practical. There were guards all over the front entrance of the Cat, but one night Emily discovered a secret way out used by “special guests”. She’d made a break for it, not sure what awaited her on the streets of Dunwall but desperate for freedom. But her fancy shoes, clomping down the passageway, had alerted the guards. The second time, she’d been more careful, planning the perfect time in between guard rotations, and carrying her shoes in her hand to muffle her footsteps. Unfortunately, she’d stepped straight down on a rusty nail in her bare feet. The new guard had appeared a few minutes later to find her crying as she tried to pull the nail from the sole of her foot. For that escape attempt, the Madame had locked her in one tiny room of the attic. Still, it had been worth it, she thought later that night. Emily was all alone here, and for all she knew she would be all alone for the rest of her life. This one last relic of her mother’s may be the only thing she would ever have left of her. That night, Emily fell asleep in the darkness, clutching at the fabric and wishing desperately not to be alone.  
It wasn’t long after that that she had gotten her wish. Corvo, back from the dead, with a frightening mask and a deep sadness below it. But he was alive, and he took her away from the Cat to a new place, where she could run and swim and everyone smiled at her and called her by name. Here, she was a princess again, albeit a princess in exile. She even got a tutor (much to her chagrin; if it was one thing she didn’t miss about her old life it was that). Still, having Callista harping on her to sit still and chew with her mouth closed was almost comforting. It was good to feel like someone cared about her again. It reminded Emily of the days when she had had a mother. Emily once again, however, refused to change out of the tattered white suit. In a fit of angst, Callista had stolen the suit while Emily was in the bath, attempting to throw it away and force Emily to wear something else. But Corvo, who always saw so much, so deeply, and retrieved it from the dumpster outsider of the Hound Pits and quietly reprimanded Callista. From then on, no one bothered her about her clothes. Emily was even beginning to like the suit. The knees and elbows had almost completely worn away so it was no longer constricting, and all the horrible itchy lace was gone.  
The day that Emily’s new home broke apart was also the day her tired old suit received its last stain. She’d been roused suddenly that morning by Havelock bursting in to her tower room. Ignoring Callista as she shouted at him in confusion and worry, the admiral grabbed Emily roughly and pulled her from bed. A part of her knew right then. She’d felt hands like that before, a year ago, as they pulled her away from her home. Looking up, she saw nothing on Havelock’s face-no emotion, no kindness. Her heart had sunk, and she decided quickly that she would not be a victim this time. Channeling all the rage her ten-year-old body possessed she bit and kicked at the much larger man until his grip loosened. She had almost made it away when his gigantic hand had swept across her vision, slamming her head into the wall. Red spurted from the wound onto the white satin, and her world went black.  
When she woke, it was Corvo there, of course it was, the only true constant in her life besides the tattered white suit. He held her, cleaning the blood from her face and promising her that it was over, that she was going home. But it wasn’t really home anymore. The tower had changed. Mother’s gardens had been trampled, ugly metal gates erected in their place. And her beloved white gazebo was empty, now, save for a plaque with her name on it. Like that meant anything.  
Inside, a large amount of the things Emily had once owned had gone missing, the Lord Regent apparently having decided Emily’s toys and dolls were not worthy of his new order. Her dresses were all gone too, so for the first night, at least, Emily didn’t have to make the choice of taking off the white suit. She slept that night in a side bedroom, wrapped in Corvo’s massive coat, while he slept in a chair beside her.  
It had been at the coronation where the line had finally been drawn. The coronation was to be a modest affair, probably one of the smallest since the Empire had been formed. Even if the Crown had money left for a party-which it really didn’t-a celebration would have seemed ghoulish in light of recent circumstances. The guest list was also unusual. A fair number of nobles had died in the plague, and many more had been accused of aiding the Lord Regent’s conspiracy. In their places came families usually not important enough for royal events—low-level foreign nobles and wealthy merchants. The children Emily had grown up playing with at these functions were replaced with new families—the Marcollas, the Natisous, the Mayhews. Still, a certain amount of decorum was required, as Emily was constantly reminded in the days leading up to the ceremony. A tattered suit with a bloodstain caked in was not appropriate. Even Corvo wouldn’t budge on that. Still, he tried to make it easier on her. A few days before the coronation, he appeared quite mysteriously with a replica of Emily’s suit. From a distance, it looked exactly like it-not the one she wore now, but the suit as it had been the day Jessamine had died, clean and fresh. Up close, there were certain differences. Instead of tight shiny satin, it was a soft, loose material with extra room in the knees and elbows, and hidden pockets sewn in. Emily understood. For all his talk of the crisis being over, Corvo was still worried. If something happened at the party, he wanted her to be able to run away.  
But no assassins came to crash the coronation. Corvo’s replacement suit was comfortable, and it did help Emily’s confidence a little to be in a clean outfit amongst the beautifully dressed nobility. And that girl, at the party, seemed to like it, which was nice. When Emily returned to her room that night, though, she saw the old suit laying out on her bed where she’d left it, and felt a strange and nonsensical rush of guilt. Her mother’s suit, abandoned while she went out to party. Emily had quickly taken off the imposter suit and put the real one back on.   
But with the old suit on, she realized something horrible. It was tight. It was itchy and uncomfortable and restricted her breathing. The hems weren’t long enough for her arms and legs, and the stains on it suddenly looked huge and dark. It didn’t fit anymore. She didn’t fit anymore.  
Barely knowing what she was doing, Emily ripped the suit off of her body and reached for the pair of scissors on her desk. She attacked the suit with a wild, hollow sort of anger, shredding through the tired satin and leather until it lay in strips in her arms. Then she got up, threw open the window, and tossed the remnants out into the air.  
She stood at the window, ragged breaths slowly calming, watching the white shreds, like feathers, fall slowly on the city below. And she cried for a long time, for the suit, and for the girl who used to wear it.


	2. Chapter 2

Emily watched her ten-year-old self at the window, and she watched the dark rock in front of her. The two worlds folded over on each other, so it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. The girl at the window, she thought, was a memory of the past. She had to be.   
But the Emily standing on the black stones also wore the white satin suit. Now, though, it was clean and undamaged, and fit her small body well. Somehow she knew that this suit was no copy. It was the very same outfit her mother had laid out for her, one sunny morning. The same one that she had destroyed, one dark night. She could feel it. But how?  
Things lost in the real world wash up on the shores of the Void, Emily thought. She had heard that somewhere, maybe from Sokolov. That made sense, as much as anything about the Void did. Was that where she was right now, then? Emily looked out over the darkness, at the jagged black rocks beneath her feet. It seemed like a definite possibility.   
Emily was lost in thought, wondering how she had ended up here, when she felt  
a sudden, sharp stab in her side. It had happened midway through the coronation, after the modest dinner and before all the adults had gotten really drunk. Emily was perched uncomfortably on the chair that was serving as a stand-in throne (no one was quite sure what the Lord Regent had done with the real Kaldwin throne). The night had been a bore, for certain. Everyone was very nice to her, which she liked, and she had had adults tripping all over themselves to impress and amuse her, which she also liked, but she couldn’t help but think—these smiles, these compliments, they were the same her mother had once gotten. As the nobles and merchants bowed to her, she wondered how many of them wouldn’t mind watching her die. It put a damper on the festivities, for sure.  
Eventually, the adults had gotten bored with trying to woo their sullen young empress and had left her mostly alone, while they milled around the wine barrels at the other end of the room. It would be another hour or so before Countess Contee drunkenly spilled wine down another noblewoman’s front, calling the party to an abrupt close, but already Emily could hear inebriated shouts from the crowd. Emily looked at the back of Corvo’s head from where he stood in front of the throne and wondered if she could persuade him to take her back to her room early. She was ruminating over the best way to ask when she felt the stab. She yelped in pain, and Corvo’s head snapped back so fast he might have broken his neck.   
But when she looked over at her assailant, she saw only a young girl, crouched behind the throne, a wicked grin on her face and a dinner fork in her hand. Emily started to sputter out an angry retort when the girl spoke in a bright Morlian accent:  
“You better stop slumping in your chair, lady. I hear the Empress is supposed to be here tonight.”  
It was the shit-eating grin that sold the joke, the girl’s lips pulled up against crooked teeth and her blue eyes sparkling. And Emily was laughing, for the first time that night, for the first time in a while. She and that girl had spent the rest of the party together, laughing at the sloppy drunk nobles and playing tag around the throne while Corvo hid a smile. They had been inseperable, Emily and  
“Alexi!” in the grey of the Void, Alexi’s red braids shone like the sun. She was just as Emily remembered her from that night-short, heavily freckled, dressed in a dark green suit with patches on the knees. This time, in lieu of a fork, she had poked Emily with a sharp piece of black stone. She dropped it as Emily rushed into her arms.  
“Oh, Alexi, I’ve missed…I’ve missed you so mu—” Emily couldn’t seem to finish the sentence. Upon seeing her best friend, Emily’s mouth had moved into an automatic smile. Yet her heart felt like it had dropped out of her chest. What was this horrible feeling? Like loneliness, and nostalgia, and a dark, sick emotion that she didn’t understand. Why did she miss Alexi? Where had Alexi been? What had she just been doing?   
Emily opened her mouth to ask, but Alexi interrupted her. “You missed me?” she said, laughing. “Where did I go, your Majesty?”  
At that, Emily pursed her lips. “I told you not to call me that when we’re alone.” Alexi had called her many things: “your Majesty” when she was being rude, “your Imperial Majesty” when she was angry, “Emmy” when she was happy, “love” when…  
When had Alexi called her that? Not as children, Emily thought, no it was later  
much later, after the Watch was done getting their statements. The two of them had sat at the dinner table on the first floor of the tower, still shaking with shock over what had happened. The Royal Physician was tutting as she bandaged the cut on Emily’s arm, where one of the Regenters had gotten a lucky strike it before Emily had beat him senseless. Corvo paced in front of her in the dim light, a tense, angry shadow. He muttered under his breath, too low and too fast for Emily to understand, but she thought she knew what he was saying. She wanted to reach out to him, tell him she was okay and it was his training that had saved her, but his anger and guilt seemed to pull him away from her, as though they were not separated by a foot of space but the whole of the sea. Emily wanted to cry but she knew she shouldn’t. Not here, in front of the watch, with the newspapers waiting just outside and the servants peering in curiously.   
But underneath the blanket around her, a cold hand gripped Emily’s and gave a gentle squeeze. Beside her, Alexi leaned on her shoulder. Alexi, who had also saved her life tonight. As Emily had stood, fighting two of the freaks that had ambushed them with swords, a third looked her in the eye and lobbed a grenade into the carriage at her feet. She was locked in combat, with no hands available to stop the grenade, unable to get away. Emily saw in that moment that the assailant-a devotee of the Lord Regent’s, they found out later-was willing to kill his two friends, sacrifice them just to kill her. The thought seemed to freeze her.   
But Alexi jumped into action. Leaping over Emily, she picked up the live grenade and threw it back, a long string of angry words following it. The last thing Emily saw of the grenade-thrower was a cloud of red mist. It would have been her, if it wasn’t for Alexi. She looked over at her friend and gave a small and hesitant smile.  
Alexi had stayed there that night—her parents had been visiting relatives in Morley, and she didn’t want to stay at her empty house after all that happened. Corvo had offered one of the guest bedrooms, but Alexi had wanted to stay with Emily in the royal apartments. That night, they’d laid in Emily’s bed, lit only by faint shafts of silver moonlight, and neither of them had any idea what to say. Talking with Alexi had always been as easy as breathing, but now the weight of what had just happened seemed to hang over them. It was Alexi who broke the silence first.  
“Emmy, I’m sorry I stabbed you,” she said unexpectedly.  
Emily almost laughed. “What?”  
“That night we met. The coronation. I stabbed you with a fork.” Alexi’s face was unreadable in the shadows, but there was a tremor in her voice. “I thought it’d be funny. But I didn’t—it must have scared you, after everything that happened. Did you think someone was there to hurt you, or…or kill you? I bet you did. Void! I didn’t even think. It didn’t feel real, like I knew someone had killed your mother but I…it felt so far away and I…”  
Alexi’s voice trailed off and Emily realized with a start that she was crying. “No, no Alexi, it didn’t mean anything, you’re fine, really,” she said, searching for Alexi’s head in the dark and trying to give it a reassuring pat. In truth, Alexi’s prank had scared Emily a lot at the time. But it was Alexi that helped her feel safe every day since.  
“No, it’s not…not okay,” sobbed Alexi, her chest hitching. “Someone tried to kill you today. F-f-for real. I could have watched you die! And I couldn’t—I can’t live without you, I—”  
Without quite realizing what she was doing, Emily reached across the gap between them and kissed Alexi. By some miracle, she found Alexi’s mouth in the dark, and by another miracle, Alexi kissed her back, twining her fingers in Emily’s black hair. From under her lips, Emily heard the word for the first time, soft, dangerous: “love”.  
Emily watched this play out in front of her eyes and that unpleasant, sick emotion rose in her stomach again. Why? This was one of her happiest memories, she realized now. What had soured it? She wondered, again, what she was doing here. What had happened recently? Her mind seemed blank, except for one unwelcome thought:  
Things lost in the real world wash up on the shores of the Void.  
In front of her, Alexi seemed unbothered. She looked out over the Void, a small smile on her lips. “Those were good times. I think about that a lot. About you.”  
She turned back towards Emily, and she was still smiling, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “That was the first day I realized what you meant to me. And how easy it would be to lose you. And I promised myself, promised that you would never die like that. I’d protect you.”  
Emily’s sight blurred as tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. She tried to reach towards Alexi but her arms seemed locked at her sides. She tried to say the question, the question that would ruin everything, but she couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t  
couldn’t scream. Delilah had done something to her, not turned her to stone but made her muscles feel like it. Alexi was bending over her, face full of concern, so focused that she couldn’t see Ramsey behind her, or hear the folding blade click open. Words of warning fought to leave Emily’s mouth, but she was paralyzed, only able to watch as her father’s blade cut a hole through her lover’s chest. And there was a bright flash of red again, but this time it fell on blue wool, spreading out as Alexi dropped to the ground.  
That sick, knotted emotion clawed its way up Emily’s throat and this time she saw it for what it really was: guilt. It forced her mouth open and she looked up at Alexi, who watched her sadly.  
“Alexi, are you dead?”


	3. Chapter 3

Emily couldn’t look Alexi in the eye. She slumped down on the hard stone, tearing running down her face, trying not to gag. She could see it all now—she wondered how she’d ever forgotten. A small, cold hand reached out to her, gently reaching for her face. “Emmy,” said the dead girl, her voice as soft as moth wings, “Emmy. It’s ok, it really is.”  
No, no, it wasn’t. The memories came faster now, spilling over each other, each desperate to be seen. Alexi kissing her in the darkness. That horrible word, the word Emily had never been able to say aloud. Watching Alexi fall, helpless. Talking to her, one last time, then leaving her body like the coward she was. Like the coward she had always been-  
“Emily!” It was hearing her name that broke her out of her misery. Alexi always called her Emmy when they were alone, ever since they were kids. She looked up, gasping, face still wet with tears. Alexi’s arms wrapped around her and pulled her close, digging in to the white satin with a kind of need.  
“It’s ok, Emmy. I know. I know.” Her voice was gentle and reassuring as she stroked Emily’s hair. “But you need to know. I don’t have any regrets.”  
“I do, though. I do.” The guilt twined around her throat like vines. “I love you! And I never…I never said it. I just let you die like you didn’t mean anything to me. I was so afraid and I just-I”  
Emily yelped in pain as another piece of Void rock lodged itself sharply in her side. “Oh, Emmy,” sighed Alexi, and the laughter was back in her words. “You dumb, ditzy idiot. You’ve got the brains of a river krust, and half the wit. How they let you run an empire, I’ll never know.” Emily stared up at her in wonder.   
“Of course I knew, dummy. I knew every time you took my hand under the dinner table. I knew every time some nobleman came to call on you, thinking he’d be the next Emperor-Consort, and you spent the whole time acting as unattractive as possible. Do you remember that time that horrible Bunting boy started flirting with you at a party, and you started picking your nose right in front of him? And then you looked over at me and laughed. I knew then. And I knew when you’d leave your ring in my chambers, just so I’d have to come find you later and give it back. You were never subtle, my empress, my love,” Alexi stood up, smiling down at her.  
“And I knew when you held me, when I was bleeding out. Your face was the last thing I saw and I knew from how you looked at me.” Her smile lit the Void. “I knew in every way that counted, so you can stop blaming yourself.”  
Emily gave one last, hitching sob, and forced a smile to her face. “This isn’t just a dream? You aren’t just some figment of my imagination, telling me what I want to hear? How are you here talking to me, if you’re real?”  
“Excuse you, your Imperial Majesty,” said Alexi haughtily, sounding much less like the adult Emily had lost and more like the mischievous ten-year-old she resembled. “I am very real, thank you very much. I didn’t come here to have my integrity slandered, either!”  
That sounded like the Alexi Emily knew. But then Alexi’s face darkened. “I’m here…because when I died, I decided I would wait for you. However long it took. There’s more beyond this, see, and I didn’t want to leave without you.”  
“Am I…dead…then?” asked Emily hesitantly, trying to remember her death. There was Delilah, in the throne room, she remembered that much. Had that gone badly? She didn’t think so.  
“No,” Alexi breathed out. “No, you’re not, and you’re not going to be for a long time, you understand? But me…I’m done waiting. I’m leaving, and I followed you here so I could say goodbye.”  
“What?” gasped Emily. “Did I—did I do something wrong?”  
“What? No! Wh-why do you always jump to the worst thing?” sputtered Alexi. “No, listen. It isn’t right, me waiting here for you to die. What matters to me is your life, not your death. You…you’ve got a whole future ahead of you, a whole life. And you’ve got to live it for the both of us. I’ll always love you. But I want you to move on.”  
Tears swam in Emily’s eyes again. “I-I don’t understand. I don’t want this.” Hadn’t she heard this before? When had it been? There’d been a tree, and a horrible statue made of bone, and a bright light, beautiful and terrible. She hadn’t wanted it then either.  
Alexi gave an annoyed grunt. “Pigheaded as always. Look, let me show you something. I think that can explain it better.” She stuck out her hand. After a while, Emily took it, her knees knocking together as she got up. Alexi led her through the darkness of the Void confidently, and Emily followed her willingly, shoes click-clacking on the black stone. They passed strange things, whales, larger than any Emily had seen before, hovering in the sky; effigies of black stone in the shapes of strange buildings, strange lights in the distance that Alexi warned Emily not to stare at too closely.  
When they arrived at their destination, a part of Emily already knew what it would be. After all, she found herself here in the Void, a child of nine, dressed in shiny white satin and lace. What would she be, without that fateful gazebo to go with? It stood in the Void, looking the same as it had been that day. No bloodstains marred its surface, no headstone marked it. For a second, Emily wondered if one more thing once lost would turn up here. Then she remembered the light, and the statue made of bone, and realized that that particular lost thing had been lost for good.  
“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Alexi, turning to face her again. “You let her go.”  
“I didn’t want to,” said Emily, and she remembered now, standing in the duke’s treasure vault, releasing the spirit trapped in the Heart. Her mother’s spirit.  
“But she wanted you to,” Alexi put her hands on Emily’s shoulders. “She loved you, and so she stayed, just like me. But she realized—life is for the living, Emily. She couldn’t stay, knowing that she would never really be alive again. And she didn’t want you to live, waiting for her. She got to watch you grow up into an amazing woman. My amazing woman,” Alexi added, raising Emily’s hand to her lips. “But she knew it was time to go on. I have to, too.”  
Emily took her hand from her dead lover’s grasp, and walked away, to the far side of the gazebo. She wondered which side her mother had been standing on, that day. It was hard to tell in the Void.  
“Why’d you bring me here, then?” she whispered. “Why not just go? How is this-how is seeing you again supposed to help me forget you?” This time, she managed to block the stone Alexi tried to jab into her side. Her arms were nowhere near as strong as when she was an adult, but she still managed to knock the stone from Alexi’s hands and send it flying several feet, where it abruptly stopped and began hovering in midair. This earned her a very disapproving look from Alexi, but Emily didn’t care. “This isn’t funny!” she hissed. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you see me just to leave me again?”  
The words hung in the air between them. At long last, Alexi sighed sitting down at the edge of the gazebo. “Look out there, Empress,” she pointed down, deep into the Void. “What do you see?”  
Emily sat down beside her, swinging her skinny legs over the edge. She squinted into the darkness, but—there. Below them, on an outcropping of rock, a lone figure stood stock still. It looked familiar. Was that-no, it couldn’t be-but it was.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hypatia?” said Emily. “What-what’s she doing here?”  
Alexi hummed. “The same as you, I think,” she said. “Looking for lost things. She won’t find them, but she could stand there looking forever.”  
Emily frowned at that, and looked down at the doctor again. What was she doing? Just standing there  
standing shivering in the throne room, voice breaking. She was so lovely there, the light catching her auburn hair, her long pale fingers grasping the edges of her coat desperately. Emily had taken her into her arms and Hypatia had melted against her and it all just felt so right. That, and all the things that had happened after-  
In the void, Emily’s child self gave a strangled little yelp and blushed a deep crimson, and Alexi cackled. “Catching up, are we, your Majesty? Where is she now, in the real world? Sleeping naked in your bed, no?”  
Emily blushed even deeper, stuttering, trying to find a good retort. She failed, and eventually just smacked Alexi on the back of the head to shut her up. Unfortunately, that only made her laugh harder.  
“Tha-that’s none of your business!” snapped Emily, and Alexi’s laughter stopped abruptly. There was a moment of silence, and then Emily clapped her hands over her mouth, realizing what she had said. “No, no, Alexi, I didn’t-I didn’t mean-“  
“Yeah, you did,” said Alexi softly. She turned head, and whatever was on her face was hidden in her red braids. “’Cuz it’s private, you know? She’s your giiirlfriend, you know? And I’m not.” She drew out the world girlfriend in a teasing way that failed to hide the tremor in her voice. “Not anymore.”  
Emily gaped at her. She wanted to say something, had to say something, but what could she say? No, Alexi, I might have slept with Hypatia and told her I loved her, but she doesn’t really mean anything to me. She hasn’t replaced you, even though I buried you months ago   
in an empty box because they couldn’t find the body. Emily had searched for weeks, desperate and angry, combing through the mass graves Delilah had dug through her city, tracking down any of the traitorous members of the Watch that had survived the purge. But none of the bodies, half-eaten by rats and decay, had carried Alexi’s bright Morlian hair, and none of the traitors remembered what had been done with the body of one young woman. And Alexi’s parents had returned to Dunwall for the grand funeral Emily had promised them, and time had run out, so Emily stood in the bright sunlight of the Palace district, watching an empty coffin being lowered into a grave at the base of a white marble statue.  
It was beautiful work. Emily had found the same sculptor who had made the famous statue of her mother in Rudshore, and he’d worked night and day. It was a bit of a frivolous expense in the wake of the crisis, but Emily couldn’t make herself do anything less. It still didn’t feel like enough. She’d wasted her time with Alexi, wasted all those precious years, and now all she had left was the white marble statue. It really was beautiful, and it would memorialize Alexi for all time. She would stand above Dunwall for decades, a symbol, as the plaque below the statue said, of defiance and honor in the face of oppression. It was all very nice, very respectable. It didn’t feel right at all. Emily wished the statue had a dinner fork in its hand. Beside her, Alexi’s father sobbed  
beside her, Alexi’s ghost sat silently. Watching her funeral through Emily’s eyes.  
“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,” she said at last. “You still have a life. You’ve already started to move on, and I…I was really happy for you. I know you don’t want to leave me. I know it. I love you for it. But you don’t have a choice. I’m gone, and you’re still here, and you have to make the best of that.” They sat in silence for a few minutes more, and then Alexi said softly, “she’s a real nice lady. Pretty, too. She likes you a lot.”  
“She’s not you,” said Emily, sniffling.   
“She’s not. I’m cuter,” Alexi’s voice was a little lighter now and it forced a tiny smile to Emily’s lips. “But she’s okay I guess. She’s your future, I think.”  
Emily frowned. Hypatia was still where she had been before, standing stock-still and staring at something just out of sight on the rock in front of her. Between them, the chasm of the Void dropped off into darkness.  
“I’m…scared,” she said at last, pulling her knees up to her chest.  
“Of what? Oh…that she’ll go all rrrrrr on you?” Alexi fake-growled and clawed her fingers, curling her mouth into a snarl.  
“What? No, that’s-over,” Emily felt a little offended on Hypatia’s behalf. She struggled to articulate what was bothering her. “No, she’s just like-a real adult.” Her voice came out high and childish, and Alexi laughed again.  
“I, uh, hate to tell you Emmy,” she poked Emily in the side of her white satin suit, “you are kind of like a real adult too. Normally, I mean.”  
“You know what I mean!” Alexi was being very rude now and it was really starting to get on Emily’s nerves. “She’s…older. So much older. And I…I worry…”  
“That someday she’ll die. And she’ll leave you all alone. You’ll bury her, just like you did me, and you’ll be all by yourself.” Alexi paused. “Just like you were when I died.” Emily gulped and nodded, blinking back tears.  
“I think you’re blowing it out of proportion,” declared Alexi. “You could easily die first. I mean yeah, she’s old, but the life you lead? You could fall off a building. You could get stabbed by a gangster. Your pear soda could get poisoned-“  
“Alexi! You’re not helping!” Emily yelped indignantly.   
But Alexi continued oblivious. “-eaten by hagfish. You could get turned into a bloodfly nest. You could-“  
“Alexi!” yelled Emily, punching her hard in the stomach.  
“Ow-you could get pushed into the Void because you punched your best friend!” Alexi slapped her hands away. “Okay, okay that was a bit much. But think! What are you gonna do, never fall in love? Never make friends? Never talk to anyone ‘cuz you’ll feel bad if you lose them?” Emily glared at her, and her voiced dropped. “You have to learn to let go, Emmy. Or you’ll never really live.”  
Emily said nothing, just held on to her knees, fingers digging into the white satin covering her legs. She remembered the feel of it tearing in her hands, remembered that night when she threw it out the window. When she had let go. Her stomach twisted into painful knots.  
“Even Corvo has, you know,” whispered Alexi, and Emily gasped. “What? He never forgot your mother. But he knew she was never coming back. And he let himself fall in love with someone still alive.”  
“What? No-he would have told me!” then Emily paused, looking back at Alexi by the corner of her eyes. “Who is it?”  
Alexi grinned conspiratorially, and motioned her closer. Emily leaned it and gasped as Alexi whispered a name to her.  
“But he’s so ugly!” she said, shocked. Alexi let out another peal of laughter. “And his liquor is overpriced. I know he charges the palace on a markup. OOOH!” she slapped her knee angrily. “That’s why father always insists we go through him for all the palace events. I’m going to have a talk with him when I get back!”  
Alexi chuckled, putting her arm around Emily’s shoulder. “Give him a break, your Majesty. And give her a break too, huh?”  
“Huh?” Emily looked at Alexi curiously. The girl was pointing down below them, at Hypatia. “What’s wrong with her?” Emily had been so distracted during the conversation that she hadn’t thought too much about it, but it was strange. Why was she here, staring into the darkness? What was Hypatia looking at?  
Emily craned her neck to see. Then she got up, walking along the side of the gazebo to get a better view. Just around that bit of rock-  
“Oh no,” she whispered.


	5. Chapter 5

Hypatia stood frozen, staring straight ahead at a low cot on the black rock. And on the cot, a corpse-  
“Vasco.” Emily recognized the ruined, bloody body. Bloodied by Hypatia’s hands. Behind it on the rock were other bodies, less recognizable, but Emily knew who they were. Victims of the Crown Killer.  
“She’s stuck there,” said Alexi, still sitting on the side of the gazebo, swinging her legs up and down in the Void. “She’s just like you, stuck on the past. Every night, she comes here to look at the bodies Grim Alex left behind.”  
“It isn’t her fault,” Emily’s voice was pained. She longed to reach across the chasm between them and take Hypatia into her arms. To turn her head away from past.  
“I wasn’t your fault either, Emmy,” Alexi replied. “And I want for you what you want for her. Can’t you see that? But if you want to stop her, you’ll have to leave this place.” You’ll have to leave me, unspoken but hanging in the air all the same.  
Alexi got up and wrapped her arms around Emily. They were cold now, but still comforting. “You have to be brave, Emmy. For her. For me.” She squeezed Emily tighter, a little desperately. “For you. You have to live.”  
They stood like that for a long while, Alexi leaning gently on Emily’s shoulder as tears ran silently down her face. Finally, Emily wiped her eyes, turning around to face Alexi and taking her hands. “I won’t ever forget you. I promise. No matter what.”  
Alexi smiled softly. “I know. Now get ready.”  
Emily nodded. Reaching up, she took the red bow from her hair, then the white scarf from her neck. She unclasped the whale-leather shoes and pulled off her long white socks. These she set gently down on the marble floor of the gazebo, before folding up her white jacket and setting that down as well. Next came the white pants with no space in the knees, and the frilly lace shirt. All folded neatly. Her mother wouldn’t have complained.  
“I always hated clothes like that,” said Emily, not in the voice of a child, but a deeper, more confident tone. She adjusted the lapels on her long purple coat, and tapped the soft heels of her climbing boots on the ground. She couldn’t remember putting the clothes on but she immediately felt more comfortable.  
“You look very handsome. The doctor will be wowed, I’m sure,” said Alexi. She reached up and straightened Emily’s collar. “Even your mother would have to admit it.”  
They looked at each other for a moment, smiling. Alexi was once again in her blue Watch uniform, blue except for one dark stain. Emily held Alexi’s cold cheek, and bent in for one last kiss. It was quick-both of them knew that the longer they kissed the harder it would be to let go. And they broke apart, hands separating for the last time as Emily turned back to the Void. A ragged pathway of black stone had appeared at the edge of the gazebo, leading down to where the doctor stood. Emily put one foot towards it, then turned back.  
“I love you, Alexi. I always will,” Emily was smiling, but her eyes glittered with tears.  
“Silly girl. I know.” And Alexi watched as Emily turned away from her, walking down the stone path to a place she could never follow.


	6. Chapter 6

Emily had cut quite a dashing figure as she strode down the pathway, Alexi thought. Going to save her damsel in distress. At the bottom, she’d hesitated only for a second before taking Hypatia’s arm and pulling her away from the pile of bodies. Alexi couldn’t hear what Emily said to the doctor, but it seemed to break the spell over her. She collapsed into Emily’s embrace, burying her arms in the folds of the coat.   
“Better treat her good, old lady,” Alexi growled. But as Emily took Hypatia’s hands Alexi couldn’t help but smile. She recognized that look on Emily’s face, that look that she had once given Alexi. It was love, and even though jealousy tugged at Alexi’s heart, she felt a funny warmth spreading through her. It was a warmth she hadn’t felt since the blood had left her body. Her vision seemed to blur.  
Below her, Emily had turned away from her, holding Hypatia close. They looked graceful floating on the shards of black rock, like a pair of dancers with no music. But it was getting harder and harder for Alexi to see. The darkness of the Void had suddenly become very bright, and when she looked down at her hands, Alexi saw the brightness was coming from her. Her skin blazed hot, and as she watched, it seemed to fragment, glowing pieces coming off and floating into the darkness. Somehow Alexi wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t lost anymore. She was  
free


End file.
